


With concern, from love

by Ladyboo



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Light Angst, Multi, Witches curse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2019-07-10 23:06:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15959468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladyboo/pseuds/Ladyboo
Summary: He found himself alone for the first time years, and he hated it.





	With concern, from love

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there guys! So, it's post midnight, and I work in a few hours, but I'm stressed and moving soon and needed something sweet, so I figured I'd write? This is unedited, so theres a lot of typos, but thats not anything new here. Enjoy!

Heavy shoulders and with a distinct throb in his head, a sigh on his breath, it was quiet when he got home.

Blissfully, beautifully quiet, so much so that not a single raised voice or sputter of laughter drifted along the walls to greet him. Just the sound of his own breathing and the rustle of his clothes when he moved, the tap, tap, tap of his shoes across the floor. He hadn’t ever thought their home could sound like this, but he had learned well early enough in this venture that silence around his better halves would never mean anything good.

“Hello?”

His own voice answered on an echo though and he frowned sharply.

Because he knew these men, knew them like he had come to know himself, and Castiel couldn’t help the trepidation that immediately bloomed low in his belly. He knew better than to trust that feeling just like he knew better that to trust that silence and he took away from the door on quick, nearly silent feet. Soft swishing sounds from his trench coat as he stalked down the hall, they always insisted he use the front door when he came home. 

Sam always insisted he use the door like he needed to, Dean demanded that he took off his shoes like that sort of thing mattered, the Winchester boys playing house within the bunker with the only proper etiquette of home that they had ever known. But it made them happy, made them smile and lean into his affection, and he had realized almost immediately that he would spend the rest of his existence doing anything so long as they were happy. They deserved nothing more than to be happy, even if it meant he played their games, used the front door and took off his shoes. 

He had caused the foundation of Heaven to tremble just to keep Dean safe, and he had taken the essence of Hell within his grace just to make Sam whole. 

No price stood as too high, no necessity too cruel, he had housed Purgatory within his belly just for the hopes of creating a better world for them.

“Dean?”

He hadn’t managed the ritual though, not completely, shoes still laced and loud on the floor and Dean hated that, but Dean didn’t seem to be here for all that the impala still sat quiet and cold in the garage. 

“Sam?”

Neither of them answered though, and his feet echoed on the floor, trench trailing behind him as he inspected every room he passed only to find them empty and wanting. No warmth in the kitchen, no raspy curl of Dean’s voice as he sang to himself with flour up to his elbows or something on the stove bubbling away. No long haired head bent over a book in the library, no socked feet dancing along the hallways to music that Sam delighted in playing through the bunkers sound system. 

He found himself alone for the first time years, and he hated it. 

Not the living rooms, the dining room, nor their bedroom and with every room he checked he felt cold, with every space without them he felt a festering curl of rage. For his lovers were gone, absent from the call of his voice even though he could feel them somewhere within these walls, he knew the beats of their hearts within his own for all that they fluttered wildly with a kind of panic he never wished to feel from them. But they were gone from sight, too far from reach and he wanted to loosen the ties that bound him to this vessel and let this body drop if only so he could see them, so he could find them.

But his sight didn’t work as such, and Heaven and the Father had denied he and his brothers and sisters the power of being all knowing as such, and so his foolish heart kept him bound. 

Sentiment was a selfish burden to bear, but they were his as much as he was theirs, and so his fingers trailed along the soft teal of their bedspread just to try and see if the memories in the fabric would draw them home. They had been so delighted in making the lavish bunker something more like what they thought a home should be, and it had been a great pleasure to watch them putter about stores, Dean setting his hands on everything he could find while Sam followed behind with a cart. Their hearts were in this room, and it took considerable effort to resist from picking up a pillow from the pile Dean insisted they keep, and Castiel wanted to clutch one to his chest and press his face to it like Sam often did when he wanted comfort but couldn’t take hands on his skin. 

Those things wouldn’t bring them back to him though, no amount of stalling would help him find them wherever they were, and he took a sharp, deep breath before twisting on his heel and striding from the room. 

Heavy footfalls then and he felt too large for this vessel, electric silverlit blue that seeped from hairline cracks in his skin and he breathed with the roil of both too much and not enough that woke from its slumber within his borrowed bones. This body had never been built for this, and he could feel the oceanic swell of his grace where it stirred to wakefulness once more, he could taste the communion bright of it on the back of his tongue. He was a millenia too old for this feeling of panic, and yet it was something he’d learned the mouthfeel of enough that he both recognized it and the fester of rage that it spawned low beneath his ribs. 

The lights above him flickered as he went, sizzling static within each bulb as they hissed and popped and audibly threatened to burst. Dean would be cross with him if he left glass on the floor, Sam would get hurt if only because of his innate aversion to shoes, but he would need to find them for them to be anything other than gone. Gone and having left him alone, and the very thought made everything worse, the resounding silence of the bunker around him grating against his skin. No rumbling singing with the rich smell of food, no almost obnoxiously catchy swing music given modern life, nothing that even held the barest hints of familiar laughter and there was nothing he could use to try and convince himself that he wasn’t indeed alone.

His grace was starlight fire, broken free from the bonds of his flesh and clothes and though they ached with it, his wings unfurled with a snap. For as wide as it was the hall was still too small to contain him and they scraped across the ceiling, the walls, burning trundles of grace that left crackling scorch marks that darkened the walls. They dragged the floor as he walked and he had a companion then for the sound of his footfalls even if it was only the way the ends of his winds pulled violent and demanding across the floor, destroying once smooth tiles as he went. 

They cracked beneath his feet, beneath the celestial heavy pull of his wings and it took everything he had to keep from tearing the walls open, to refrain from pulling their home apart. Because it was their home, theirs, found by the boys through inheritance and opened to him through love but it was empty of warmth and filled with a dream ache haze instead at the lack of them. Just two days prior he had watched Dean try and fail once more to swing Sam around into a low dip to the music only for the two to wind up laughing themselves sore on the living room floor. He himself had leaned against the entryway arch and simply watched them, warmth in his chest and a self indulgent kind of love in his chest, a smile on his mouth because it was often impossible to do anything else around the two of them. 

Two days, he had only been gone for two days, had only left them to their own devices to deal with the rebuild in Heaven after they had insisted they would be fine. No hunts unless they absolutely had to, not after the last time when he had had to find them bleeding and overwhelmed because Sam had started screaming for him, they had promised. So the impala sat quiet and cold in the garage, but there were no voices to be heard and no lovers to be found, but they had  _ promised _ .

Winchester men were nothing if they didn’t keep their promises. 

But he had dragged himself through almost the entire bunker in search of them, agitation growing and his panic hitting a new, nauseating height with every minute that passed, every hour that crawled by. 

The dungeon had been empty with its blood smeared floor that still hadn’t been cleaned properly and its chains along the walls. No movement, no breathing, not a single sound to be heard and he had left that room behind just as quickly as he had walked in. He’d never managed to feel comfortable there, not with how Dean’s eyes went hard glazed and his jaw clenched, not with how Sam’s shoulders curled and his face turned pale but they refused to seal it off. 

So he checked the armory instead, the last room he had before he started over again in the garage through every part of his home for a second time like that would give him anything new. More guns than he had ever found necessary sat in long, deep shelves, lined back until they swallowed half the room with their base bodies and accessories and ammunition. Oversized casks filled to the brim with holy water and waiting to be tapped, knives, flails, maces and more handheld weaponry than he had ever seen in one mortal room. He knew them to be proficient with each in one capacity or another, and while he loved to watch them move with the fluid art they had made out of hunting and killing, there was no Sam or Dean to be found within the well stocked confines of the room.

Rage had grown familiar now, a flush of color that he had always wanted to trace with his lips across Dean’s jaw, Sam’s throat, but there was something blistering blush warm about it against his own skin and bones. It cracked like a firework beneath his skin, seismic activity violent and bright and his grace cut through the room like a glass foam flood, caused half the lights to burst in their casings just as loose munitions ruptured with on the shelves, explosive and wild. The entire armory came alive in that single moment with his lack of self control and the roiling, violent sound that bore itself within his chest. 

A sobbing scream, whip sharp and quick, gone just as quickly as it had come but it had been small, had been wet and  _ terrified _ . 

Head snapping to the side, eyes narrowed and a sharp pull in his brow, a tension to his shoulders where he wanted to throw out a hand and pull every shelf from the wall. But there were heartbeats then, there were high little voices screaming out in desperate, begging pleading tones in the back of his skull that he couldn’t just ignore. 

His knees cracked when he bent them, crouched down in front of the supply cabinet near the back of the room, he could hear them breathing, the small little whimpers of something trying to be quiet. But the cabinet door opened easily, and those were two small, dirty bare feet braced on either side of the little door jam with small scrapes and smears of blood on the bottom of them that had long since dried. Like the child had run through something broken, like he hadn’t cared to stop and take care of his own injuries, and had instead simply worried about stuffing the two of them as far back into the dark safety of the cabinet as he could.

And he could see a face then, half shrouded in darkness and smeared with dirt, and he knew the sharp, pulling feeling in his chest to be heartache and pain.

Heavily freckled cheeks shiny with half dried tears, the little boy’s mouth was firm, and he clutched the shaking toddler to his chest with little knuckles that had gone white from the pressure. Resourceful, he had pressed the two of them as far as he could into the supplies cabinet, had tucked the toddlers dark head beneath his chin until Castiel couldn’t see the other boys face but he didn’t need to when he knew the beats of their hearts. He could see the way they clung to one another though, and they reeked of anxiety, of fear.

“I won’t hurt you.”

Underfed and vicious, he would estimate that the elder was six at most, the both of them small for their ages. He knew them without question though, even before bottle green eyes stared at him with the sort of anger that no child should ever know. Dean pulled his arms tighter around where Sam sat safe and close in his lap, and as he watched, the younger clutched at his brother just as desperately. 

“Tha’s what they always say.”

Dean’s voice was precious and small, angry and thin and Castiel felt his heart ache like it hadn’t ever before. 

He wondered how long they had been here, and how long they had cried. 

He didn’t think he wanted to know, not with how Dean bared his teeth and Sam’s little fingers pulled tighter at his brothers shirt.

So he swallowed thickly, felt a knot in his throat at the hungry hollows in Dean’s cheeks, and he settled back to sit on his knees so he didn’t crowd the brothers in their chosen safe haven. There were burning questions on his tongue though, there was a bittersweet, sharp ache of relief in his lungs though, they were alive and home and safe even if they weren’t quite the whole that they had been when he had left. He would take this over nothing for all that he had wanted them to be laughing and behaving in their usual way around the kitchen when he got home, but they were breathing and that was-

“De?”

“Shh, s’kay, Sammy. M’here.”

Them breathing was everything, even if he didn’t have the first clue where to start.

Another quiet hiccuping sound and that was Sam crying, muffled against his brothers chest and he must have been the one to scream, he must have been the one to cry out. And Dean just grabbed him tighter, one hand to the back of Sam’s head to press his brother tighter against his chest. There was blood on his little knuckles, relatively fresh if only because it had just scabbed over within the last few hours and he could see it on Sam’s own and around the ends of his short little nails. He would bet that the little boys feet were just as bloodied on the bottoms, they had fought something, they had run from something, and he hated to think that they had been alone long enough to need to. 

Hands in his lap to resist the urge to pull them from the cabinet just so he could hold them like he wanted, and Castiel just wanted to see them smile. But they were far too young like this to be his Sam and Dean, they were too scared and too hungry for all that they were still just haunted enough. He refused to crowd them though, watched as Dean’s knees bent beneath his jeans and he braced himself a little harder against the inside of the cabinet, dirty blond head hidden in the darkness. 

Some things never changed, his bottle green eyes were still just as luminous when he was young as they were when he was grown, and Castiel would give his grace for how much he bet Sam’s would be the same too bright hazel. 

“I would never intentionally hurt either of you.”

Dean’s eyes narrowed, broken glass sharp and Castiel felt another drop of panic for a moment that the boy wouldn’t understand him. He didn’t know the limit of Dean’s vocabulary when he was this age, he didn’t even know just how much Sam knew for all that he had always known both men to be astoundingly intelligent. 

“You a liar? Cuz my Daddy kill yous dead if you try t’eat us.”

A sharp flinch skated down Sam’s spine, he watched the forced crawl of it and Castiel wanted to follow it with his hand in the soothing pet that his Sam always favored. But these boys weren’t his men, they didn’t talk the same and they were far too small and he needed to be careful now, needed to think before he spoke, before he scared them worse than they had already been. 

“Did somebody try to eat you?”

Sam’s fingertips had to be digging into Dean’s arms, little knuckles white as far as Castiel could see them and he had pressed himself as close to his brothers body as he could. Like he wanted to crawl inside Dean’s shirt, like he wanted to hide, and he ducked his dark head lower still against Dean’s shoulder. 

Like somebody had, and he regretted having even asked. 

“Daddy was late, cuz he’s out bein’ a hero, but he promised he’d be back! But the bastard at the desk-”

“De!”

“Shuddup Sammy, he says we looks tasty, an ran at us like he’s gon’ eat us. So I took Sammy an I hid, cuz Daddy says we gotta hide when we’s scared.”

And Dean said it so frankly, spitting words and sharp eyes, and his ferocity made sense then, the blood on their young skin made sense then. He had never thought particularly highly of John Winchester for all that he had known the man to have always tried his absolute best with his children. They had grown up like this, and he had known it for all that he had never blatantly looked for neither man had ever been his vessel and that war had never been his to wage. 

He didn’t even think Sam knew how to tie his shoes yet, but he knew to hold his brothers hand and run for his life, and Castiel watched them both in the cabinet with a tidal deep sadness in his chest that he could feel leak out into his grace. 

“So we’s ain’t scared a you, I know Latin!”

A want to smile then, such an urge that he hadn’t felt since returning home five hours prior to find the bunker seemingly empty, and Castiel let himself give a soft, small smile for his sake, for their sake. 

“And I am grateful for that. But I will do everything I can to make sure than nothing harms you, as promised.”

A low sound of disbelief, and as he watched, the brothers clung to one another righter, Dean braced his legs a little harder. 

“And why should we believe you? Daddy says strangers ain’t good people, and they’s gonna takes us or kill us.”

Steadfast, stubborn, it was good to know that their personalities hadn’t changed much with age, that their determination and codependent natures were things that had been spawned early. Dean held his arms tight around his little brothers shoulders, kept Sam pinned to his chest so Castiel wouldn’t have the option to try and take him, but the younger held on just as tight. His arms had migrated around Dean’s sides, hands had disappeared behind Dean’s back, but he must have held just as tightly. 

“I am an Angel of the Lord, Dean, and it is my sworn duty to protect the two of you at all costs.”

Hope on Dean’s face then, bright in his eyes and soft on his previously hard drawn little mouth, that expression had always been beautiful on his face then. They had always been perfect, had always been precious, and part of him wanted to keep them like this if only so they could be safe. 

“Bullshit.”

_ “De!” _

But he couldn’t help but smile, because some things really never changed. 

“I am. My name is Castiel, but you can call me Cas.”

But Dean had always believed in the things he could see, had always put faith in things that he could touch with his own hands. So he took a breath, deep in his chest and held for a moment, and he allowed both his grace and wings to curl into life where he sat. Starlight pale and glimmering, his grace stretched until it filled the entire room all while his wings stretched wide for a moment. They pulled in after a moment, loose, with sleek feathers faintly ruffled before a shiver overtook them and caused them to fall flat. 

Dean’s gumption fell away then, his spine of steel hadn’t yet hardened into place then, because his little face crumpled. And his green bottle eyes filled wet and dripping as sudden, sobbing tears bubbled over and cut down his freckled cheeks. His heart felt like it wanted to break to pieces, hearing Sam’s sudden, panicked cries of his brothers name but Dean reached out, reached for him, and Cas had never denied him before. 

He leaned forward on his knees instead, hands sliding past Sam to catch Dean bellow his arms so he could draw both boys out of the cabinet and into his lap. 

Sam tumbled a bit back into his chest and his eyes were indeed just as gleaming and bright as he had known them to be, but there was blood on his face, dirt on his face, sticky trails where tears had cut through both. He looked terrified, as terrified as Cas had ever known him to be and he wished he hadn’t recognized that expression, he wished he hadn’t known what that fear would look like as the youngest aged. But there was wonder there, there was something curious and bright that he knew from faintly furrowed brows and a gaping mouth, but he watched Cas with the kind of understanding that someone so small shouldn’t have had. 

Dean hadn’t stopped crying though, had gripped at the open lapels of his trench coat and pulled the two of them as close as he could manage even as he cried. 

“Sammy, Sammy we’s  _ safe _ ! Cuz Mommy says there’s Angel’s watchin’ over us, and we-we’s safe!”

He had never given it thought, but Castiel held a Sam who had only just recently been fed the blood of demons and a Dean who was still small enough to think that Angels mean’s something good.

His arms curled around the both of them, careful to support their too slight weights, but he rocked to his feet with a graceful ease to carry them from the room.

-

Dean stopped crying in the time it took them to reach the kitchen. 

His hands had loosened their death grip on the smooth fabric of his trench, and he instead had taken one of Sam’s hands in his instead, had laced their fingers together like he had no intention of ever letting go. It made him wonder how often they had held hands as children, made him wonder at what age they had finally stopped, unsure then if he had ever seen the brothers hold each others hand outside of circumstance involving grave injury.

It was only once he had crossed through the open archway that he realized he didn’t have a single clue what to do with the two them, they were too small to just leave to their own devices on the floor. He couldn’t trust them at their full heights to not get underfoot, not to get in the way like they shouldn’t, and so Cas hesitated for a moment before setting the both of them on the metal counter that Dean often occupied himself at when cooking. 

Two wide sets of eyes watched him from two small, dirty faces, but they were hungry, they had to be hungry when they were that thin, that frail. A glance at both before he gave them his back, before he pulled at the pantry and fridge doors to find the things he needed to make them a small batch of macaroni and cheese. Dean would have cried about the lack of seasoning or a vegetable if he were himself, but he just watched Castiel where he moved instead, watched the flutter of his wings and the drift of his trench, the motion of his arms when he removed both it and his tie like he usually did upon first returning home. 

The two boys simply held hands where he had left them and so he turned to his work of making them food. 

“Mista Cas...Cati...Cath...”

Sam’s voice was small, high and thin like he had never heard it before, and thought he didn’t pause, the angel turned hunter turned he wasn’t quite sure was grateful that he had turned their back to them. Because neither child could see the way he smiled, wide enough that his cheeks pulled and ached with it and his nose wrinkled, the kind of smile that one or both of them always kissed him for. They wouldn’t understand now though, not with how small they were, he had simply never given thought to how precious and innocent either of them must have been before this world had decided to sink its teeth into their bones. 

“You can call me Cas, Sam, if Castiel is too hard.”

Gentle words, a warm tone, they were out of elbow noodles but he could make do with the pipe rigate that Dean had been saving. He could find them more, he could take them to Italy if they very well wanted, so the noodles went into the boiling water while he stared at the packaging for just how long to leave them in. 

A throat cleared behind him though, small even if vaguely insulted and he wanted to laugh because he knew that sound, intimately, and he knew the facial expression that went along with it. 

“Mista Castiel, sir, can I asks you somfin?”

Respectful even when he was that little, and Cas didn’t know what else he had expected. Somebody had taught them manners early then, and thought they hadn’t stuck very well with Dean, Sam had retained more than enough for the both of them. He wondered when the youngers temper had developed though, volatile and violent and impossible to control when somebody pushed him hard enough, he wondered how old Sam had been when he had first learned how to use his words and make it hurt. 

The package said to cook the pasta for fifteen minutes, but he had often watched Dean salt the water, so he dumped in a bit before pulling a colander from the overhead pot and pan rack. 

“Of course you can, Sam.”

“Uh oh.”

Dean then, sounding suddenly like the sky had started to fall on them, like he’d been through this sort of thing already. 

He didn’t have time to turn and figure out  _ what _ exactly the elder Winchester boy had been through already before Sam took a belly deep breath. 

“Where did your wings go, I thoughts angels was supposed to has wings cuz they gada save peoples.”

“I put them away so I can ma-”

“You’ve got a sad face. Why do you gots a sad face, did someone take your blanket? De takes my blanket somestimes when hes cold, but I cry until he shares. Cuz is mine and he’s a meanie jerk.”

“Sammy!”

Blinking at the backsplash behind the stove, Cas let the steam from the pasta water bubble up and swirl against his face. Giggling from behind him, small and childish and delighted, but he had never thought that Sam would have been the more talkative of the two. Like he had too many thoughts and too many questions and hadn’t had to learn yet how to hold his tongue for fear of repercussions. 

“Do you need a huggie? My Daddy gives the bestest huggies ever, cuz he’s big big, like a tree, an his face is itchy, but he makes funny noises an he picks you ups when he gives huggies!”

The pasta needed to boil still, and when he turned his head it was to find that Sam had his little arms raised high above his head, whole body swaying side to side. He crashed repeatedly into his brother, but Dean just let himself be pushed and watched Sam with the most enraptured little expression. He had always been besotted then, had always been beside himself as far as Sam was concerned. 

Sam never stopped talking, and Dean couldn’t contain his emotions, but there was something so heartwarming and refreshing about the two of them like this that he almost wished nothing had ever forced them to change. 

His grin was toothy, gapped as it was, and Sam gave it freely because he didn’t know any better yet. 

“He could gives you a huggie, Mista Castiel! Huggies from Daddy make everythin better, cuz he’s the bestest best Daddy!”

Part of him wanted to keep them like this, because he had never seen Sam quite so free with himself, and he had never seen Dean quiet so open and comfortable with his smiles. He wanted them to be happy like this, he wanted them to be without the crushing burdens that this world had all too readily piled onto their too young shoulders. Perhaps his time with them had made him selfish though, because Cas felt inexplicably lonely even as younger versions of his loves sat on the counter behind him. 

“Hey, Sammy!”

Sam swayed a touch too far to the side, nearly toppled himself off of the counter, but Dean grasped onto him quickly like he was used to this, like he knew just what to do. Before Cas could leave the heat of the stove, he had his younger brother secured in his lap, held him with careful banded arms around his waist like he had done this one too many times throughout their young lives. Cas supposed he had, John had often left the boys by themselves for hours at a time and what else was there for Dean to do but take over in the shadow steps that John had left behind?

“Do you has a Daddy? Do angels gots Daddy’s? That’s a lotta angels, do you all gots the same Daddy or-or do you have lots a Daddies?”

The boy never stopped, and as he watched, Dean hid his grin in Sam’s hair, hands clasping at his brother’s stomach. 

Two hot mitts, and he strained out the pasta of nearly all the water. Just enough left behind, surely some pasta water wouldn’t hurt them, and he then stared at the block of Velveeta on the counter with an overwhelmed, heavy weight on his shoulders while the noodles spewed clouds of steam from the sink. Dean made this look easy, moved around the kitchen with the same fluid grace that danced him between kills with a machete, but Cas felt horribly in over his head. 

“We all have the same father, I have a lot of brothers and sisters.”

Whispering followed by a giggling laugh from Sam, but Dean’s face was still half hidden in his little brother’s hair so all Castiel could see were his eyes. Narrowed the way they did when Dean grinned, an instigator even when he was small, and Cas would give his feathers for how sure he was that the elder fed Sam half the questions he asked. 

“A lot like ten or a lot like ten ten, cuz there was a boy in De’s class who smelled like puppies and he had  _ ten _ brothers. Tha’s a lotta brothers, a lotta lotta brothers, and De says he’s happy he’s got just me cuz he don't gots enough arms to give huggies to ten me’s.”

He had no idea how much of the cheese he was supposed to put in. 

The times he had seen Dean making this dish, the sauce had already been well underway. So he stared at the harmless cardboard casing, and listed it by the cover. It didn’t automatically slide free, it stuck at the corners, so he gave it two hard downward shakes until the bottom half smacked down on the counter. More giggling from behind him, wild and high and he couldn’t help his own smile. 

“I have thousands of brothers and sisters, I don’t think your brother could hug all of them.”

Or that he would want to, Zachariah’s sneering face and Michael’s cold frown swimming into view. Dean had always been particularly forward on his opinions of angels he deemed nothing more than dicks with wings. 

A quiet sound of wonder like he couldn’t quite believe, and Cas wondered if he had thrown his arms up again, if he still swayed back and forth in his brothers hold. He stared at the oversized, too yellow block of cheese product instead, because he didn’t know how much to use. It was just cheese though, and surely they had liked cheese as children, he had seen Dean more than once complain about eating too much of it as an adult. 

“Tha’s a lot! Like...like..enough to fill this room!”

Sam had a faint lisp, and he couldn’t tell if it was because of the structure of his baby teeth and how they were gapped or if it had simply been a speech impediment that the younger Winchester had eventually grown out of. 

He dropped the entire block down into the bit of pasta water that remained before setting the plastic-foil wrapping down on the counter.

“More than enough to fill every room.”

Sam gave a loud squeal, as if delighted by such a notion when he would have heavily armed himself as an adult. Castiel dug into a drawer for a spoon to use to stir the sauce, and fumbled a quiet curse under his breath when the cheese seemed to have already stuck to the bottom of the pan. 

“You says a bad word!”

A bubbly brown film got left in its wake no matter where he pushed it.

“I did, I’m sorry.”

He had forgotten that that sort of thing mattered now, Sam usually laughed a sputtering, delighted kind of laugh when he forgot himself and did things like that. He hadn’t thought not to curse in front of children, but Cas couldn’t give it much thought, distracted instead by the way he couldn’t get the partially melted cheese product to stop sticking to the pan. A hard scrape with the spoon and it pulled free in a gummy sheet, and he glared down at it like that would help him any. 

“You gots to turn your heat down, Mista Castiel. De says he only gets the cheese all gross and dirty when he’s gots his heat too high!”

Like Dean had cooked for the two of them even when they were this small, and Cas supposed he would have, stood on a chair while he teetered in front of the stove and talked his little brother through what he planned to try and make them to eat. So he swallowed down the fester of frustration that started again in his gut and turned his heat down instead. The cheese stopped sticking almost instantly and instead melted out in a slow, oozing pool. 

“You gada add the milk now!”

Like Sam had sat on a counter and watched his brother do this enough times to know when things needed changed or added. But he uncapped the milk and poured it in on a thin stream until Sam made a sound that told him otherwise before he set it aside with a quiet slosh. Slowly, the rest of the cheese melted, mixed with the milk until it turned into a thick sauce. 

“You ain’t very good at this, are you? Tha’s okay, De don't let me touch the stove when we got one, or stand on chairs and...and more chairs even though  _ he _ does it all the time! He says is cuz he’s big though, and it ain’t gonna hurts none if he falls.”

“You shouldn’t stand on chairs, Sam, it’s an easy way to injure yourself and make your brother sad.”

He could probably dump in the noodles. 

The colander didn’t feel hot, the noodles had stopped steaming, and he took it by a handle and dropped the strange shaped noodles in the sauce. It coated them quickly, folded in easy enough with the spoon, and maybe neither boy would mind that he’d burned the cheese a bit on the bottom. 

“De can do anyfin!”

How much prayer would it have taken for them to hold onto that blind faith during their twenties?

He shifted the food to a cold burner, turned off the heat with a flick of the dial, and set the spoon aside. He didn’t have chairs tall enough to sit them in, his men were all long legged and splayed out when they sat like they’d over grown their own bones. They could sit on the floor in the living room though, they could eat at the coffee table that Dean hated having feet on, the-

There was only one Winchester boy sitting up on the counter. 

“Samuel, where’s your brother?”

Gap toothed and dimpled, proud, Sam grinned at him and kicked his short little legs where they hung off the counter edge, and Cas felt a different kind of overwhelmed desperation pool in his blood. For Sam grinned at him like he knew exactly what he had done and Cas recognized that deviousness and would have delighted in it had he not been on the receiving end at that precise moment. Dean was absent though, had somehow managed to get himself down off of the counter while his little brother filled the silence and Castiel should have noticed, should have realized.  

_ “Damn it.” _

He crossed to where Sam sat and plucked the boy up from the counter instead, listened to the rapid giggling and caught the proud, toothy grin that the toddler gave him as he stalked from the kitchen. Proud that he had made him curse, proud that he had caused a degree of panic to slip into the angel’s blood, the boy was nothing more than pure, frustrating evil and Castiel wondered how he had ever forgotten just what that sharp glint in Sam’s eye meant. 

“Das a bad word!”

A singing tone and his smile was sticky, but Cas kept him close to his chest. Like he’d done this before, Sam clenched both hands in his button down, held tight with those little fistfuls like that was all he needed. How often had the boys given John the run around in a rental home or at Bobby’s with the exact same behavior, the giggles and the grins and the whispers?

“I’ll remind you of that later. Where’s your brother?”

As if that would garner him a response, like Sam would ever just give anybody a straight answer unless somebody’s life depended on it. He was the type to carry his secrets even beyond the grave, loyal down to his mended, tormented soul, his resolute morality and untarnished heart of gold had been ever beautiful for as long as Cas had known him. He had always defended his brother at the same of his own skin, and it put a bittersweet ache in his teeth to know that Sam had always been that way. 

The little boy just shrugged, and then he curled his arms around Cas’ throat and pressed as close as he could against the front of him. His legs were little things, thin, none of the healthy, soft fat that he had witnessed with human children and his knees and fingertips were sharp little points. But he cuddled against Cas like he felt comfortable, like he felt safe, and he tipped his own head up just so Sam could tuck his dirty face into his throat as he pleased. 

Snuffling little sounds, but Sam proved to be less and less for conversation with every room that they checked. He held on instead, little fingers knotted in the back of his shirt collar and his small body warm, bare feet slipping against his stomach with every move they made. 

“Sam.”

He didn’t want to take the boy back to the armory, refused to take him to the dungeon, but Dean at six years old proved to be just as resourceful and unpredictable as the man was at thirty-eight. Honestly, Castiel didn’t know what he had expected from either of them, Sam the perfect wide eyed menace and Dean just as devious. He stopped in the hall outside of the library, the very same library that they had just wandered through without managing to find the wayward brother despite his best efforts. 

Sam’s response was a quiet grumble though, his arms had gone mostly limp against Castiel’s shoulders, but the boy refused to let go. 

“Sam, we need to find your brother.”

“Is after nap time, he ain’t gonna answer.”

Blinking hard, eyes shut for as long as he dared lest he lose the other boy again, Castiel turned around to find Dean directly behind him. His face was clean, his feet were clean, the boy had found one of the bathrooms somewhere along his adventure. But Dean had left Sam with him, precious and pliant, and these boys didn’t know him, and he remembered the venom that Dean had handled him with upon their meeting. And his hold on Sam was gentle, careful, because he knew the sort of trust that had been placed in him for the sacred gift that it was. 

“Did you find what you were looking for?”

His sharp little chin lifted and his green eyes narrowed, Dean watched him with a challenge on his features like he needed to. And maybe he did, little versions of the men he loved who still believed angels loved them and thought that their father was a hero. Perhaps they needed to make themselves appear strong, perhaps they needed to lie with a smile, but he ached for them either way. 

“You got my Daddy’s car here.”

He had managed to find the garage on his trip them, and he should have known. 

Castiel couldn’t help but wonder though at just how long Dean had been trailing after them, shadow silent. 

“I do. I do my best to keep everything I can safe for the Winchesters.”

A convoluted answer, it skated the issue as best as he could, but it seemed to be enough for Dean. He nodded, and though Castiel recognized that look in his eyes as concern, Dean didn’t look away from his face. He didn’t break eye contact, didn’t look at Sam, and it was indeed a challenge of sorts then. The elder boy held up his arms then, he must have passed the last inspection for all that he had been deemed safe and worthy to hold Sam, and Dean curled his little hands at him in a demanding motion. 

“We need a nap, almost gettin’ eated makes us sleepy.”

He said it like this sort of thing had happened before, but Cas didn’t question and he didn’t pause, scooped Dean up with his free arm and held the boy against his chest as he strode for the room he shared with their older selves. 

“Do you want me to stay with you while you nap?”

It took Dean a minute to answer, his little hands occupied with Sam’s hair instead. Parting it here or there, pulling at it a bit, and it took Cas two doorways to notice that the boy had put himself through the motions of checking for head wounds. Practiced motions, familiar motions, he had done this before, they had both done this more than once in some capacity to the point that it had become habitual and that hurt. 

He had always thought that they had taught his heart to hurt to its fullest, but he watched them  now and Cas wasn’t so sure.

Dean only looked up at him when he crossed the threshold, eyes bright. 

“Yous gonna nap too.”

Like it was that simply, but he refused to deny either of them like this. For he was tired, had found that he both enjoyed and needed rest to some degree ever since he had returned from purgatory. So he toed off his does and left them neatly just inside the closet all without setting down either boy, and he set on the bed and swung his legs up. His pillow had been left in the middle, like the two of them had fought over it while he had been away, so he put his head there now. 

His arms couldn’t even fall limp onto the soft hold of their mattress before Dean curled himself into the crook there, Sam still half splayed across his chest like he belonged there. His arms would fall asleep like this before long, the strangest of sensations but he would lose feeling in his fingers first just like he always did without fail. But Dean fisted a hand in his shirt, and Sam had already started to drool the steady spill that he did when he slept the sleep of the truly exhausted. 

He must have fallen asleep at some point, because the room was dark when his eyes tried to blink back open. His lids were heavy though, and Sam still slept curled against him, one long arm thrown over his chest and his long hair tangled at the nap of his neck. He couldn’t feel Dean though, no warmth or hands on that side of his body for all that one of Sam’s legs had slipped between his, and Cas turned his head with the low, delirious burn of panic of the not quite awake. 

“Shh, I’m right here, go back to sleep baby.”

A mouth on his jaw, familiar, warm, and the low rumble that came from his chest had Sam’s sleep limp fingers spasming against his side. Dean had turned out the lights then, Dean had pulled the blanket up over top of them, but he had his men on either side of him then with hard muscled, crushing heat and Castiel hadn’t realized he had been tense even in his sleep until it seeped away. 

“What-”

“Witch, less of a curse and more of a-it doesn’t matter right now.” Trapped between the both of them then, Dean stitched himself in along his other side, pressed Cas’ arm across his own stomach so Dean could instead shove one arm beneath the pillows while the other stretched out. His hand locked loosely around Sam’s elbow, held on and Cas felt the way that Sam’s fingers snagged automatically in his brothers shirt. “We’ll talk about it later. You’re home, we’re safe, we love you. Go to sleep.”

And they were, and they did. 

And Castiel inhaled their shampoo and their warmth on a slow drag, and his heavy eyes drifted shut once more. 


End file.
